Pay Stub Checker
Type in the numbers from your pay stub and check the hours, overtime, FICA, federal tax and net pay one line at a time. Anything that looks off gets flagged.
Pay Stub Checker
Most paycheck calculators predict a check you haven't been paid yet. This one audits the one in your hand. Type in what the stub says, and each line comes back as a match, a rounding difference, or a gap with the most likely cause named.
What You Worked
Straight-time hours only. Leave out the overtime hours you enter below, since most stubs list them on separate lines. If your stub shows one combined figure, subtract the OT hours before entering it here.
The base rate on your stub or offer letter, before any overtime multiplier. Salaried and paid a flat amount? Leave the hours and rate at 0 and the gross check is skipped.
Hours paid at the overtime rate, on top of the regular hours above. Enter 0 if none.
Time and a half is the FLSA default for hours past 40 in a workweek (29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1)). Use 2x for double time.
Total hours entered: 40
Compare that total against the total-hours line on your stub. If it's higher, you've counted the overtime hours twice.
What The Stub Says
Total earnings for this period, before any deductions.
The Fed W/H, FITW or Federal Income Tax line. Not FICA.
Add the two lines together. Often shown as OASDI or Soc Sec, and Medicare or Fed MED/EE.
State income tax, plus any local, city, SDI or paid-family-leave line. Enter 0 in a no-income-tax state.
The take-home figure: what actually hit your bank account. Leave it at 0 to skip the net check.
Deductions and tax setup Pre-tax benefits, other deductions, pay frequency, filing status, year to date
401(k), 403(b), health, dental, vision, HSA, FSA: anything deducted before tax.
Roth 401(k), union dues, life insurance, garnishments, loan repayments, parking.
Sets the annualization used for the federal estimate.
Pub. 15-T publishes no separate table for married filing separately, so it uses the single table.
Optional. Lets the tool apply the 2026 Social Security wage base and the 0.9% Additional Medicare threshold instead of guessing.
Estimates only. Not tax or legal advice. Federal figures are 2026 US rules; state and local rates are not checked. A flag here is a prompt to ask payroll, not proof of an error.
Line By Line
Keep Your Own Hours Record
ClockWage44 logs every shift as you work it and works out the take-home figure on your phone, so you know what the check should say before it lands.
What to check on a pay stub, line by line
Four checks answer the question. Run them in this order, because they get less conclusive as you go down the list.
First, hours times rate against gross pay. Regular hours at your base rate, plus overtime hours at the multiplier, should land on the gross figure printed at the top of the stub. This is where missing punches, an unapplied raise and overtime paid at straight time all show up. If you can't reconstruct your hours from memory, rebuild them from punches with the timesheet calculator before you argue with anyone.
Second, gross minus every deduction against net pay. This is the only check on the page that needs no assumptions. It uses nothing but the numbers your employer printed, so when it fails, the stub contradicts itself and you have something concrete to raise. That's why it gets the tightest tolerance here, one cent, and the only unqualified red flag.
Third, Social Security plus Medicare against 7.65% of your FICA wages. Straightforward until you cross the wage base or carry pre-tax benefits, which is why this tool checks a range rather than a single figure.
Fourth, federal income tax. You can't verify this one from the stub alone, because it depends on the W-4 sitting in your employer's system. The estimate here assumes the simplest possible W-4, so treat any difference as a question to ask rather than a finding.
One thing the arithmetic won't catch: the identity block. A misspelled name, an old address or a wrong Social Security number causes real trouble at filing time, when your W-2 doesn't match IRS records. Read that part of the stub once a year even when the money is right.
Why your net pay is lower than you calculated
Gross to net happens in a fixed order, and each step has its own surprises.
Pre-tax benefits come out first: health, dental and vision premiums, an HSA or FSA contribution, a 401(k) or 403(b) deferral. These shrink your take-home before any tax is calculated, and a new enrollment or a mid-year plan change is the most common reason a check drops without warning.
Federal withholding is next, calculated on what is left after the pre-tax lines. A raise can move more of your annualized pay into a higher percentage-method row, so withholding rises faster than gross does. The first check after a W-4 change is often the strangest one of the year.
Then FICA, which is calculated on FICA wages rather than taxable wages. A 401(k) deferral does not reduce FICA, but Section 125 benefits such as health and HSA do, which is why FICA and federal tax rarely move together.
Then state and local tax, which this tool doesn't try to verify: 50 states plus counties, cities, state disability insurance and paid family leave is more variation than one check can carry. Enter what the stub says and it still balances the net reconciliation.
Post-tax deductions come last: Roth contributions, union dues, life insurance, parking, garnishments, and any earned-wage-access advance you already took during the period.
The distinction that matters is between smaller than you expected and mathematically wrong. If every line is present and the arithmetic closes, the check is correct even when it disappoints. To see what a given gross should produce from scratch, run the take-home pay calculator, and for the FICA piece on its own, the FICA tax calculator.
What a paycheck error actually looks like
Real errors are boring and repetitive. These are the ones that show up most, with the line on the stub where each surfaces.
Hours missing because a punch was never approved. It shows up on the hours line and on gross pay, usually as a clean fraction of a shift.
Overtime paid at the base rate instead of 1.5x. Gross comes up short by exactly half the rate times the overtime hours, which is why entering the OT hours separately above matters. Price the correct figure with the overtime calculator.
An automatic meal-break deduction on a break you worked through. That's 30 minutes a day missing from the hours line, every day, which makes it easy to spot across a full period.
Time-clock rounding running one direction. Surfaces as a handful of minutes missing per shift rather than a whole block. The time clock rounding calculator shows how much a rounding rule moves.
A raise applied a period late. Surfaces as gross being short by the rate difference times all hours, with the correct rate appearing on the next stub.
The wrong state or locality withheld after a move or a transfer. This one lands on the state tax line, and it won't close on its own, because the money went to the wrong agency.
A deduction with no enrollment form behind it. It appears in the deductions block as a line you don't recognize. Ask what authorized it.
What to do when the numbers don't match
Recheck your own inputs first. The most common false alarm on this page is entering a combined hours total in the regular-hours field and then entering the overtime hours again below, which inflates expected gross and makes a correct check look short. The total-hours echo under the inputs is there to catch exactly that.
If the gap survives, gather records before you raise it: your own hours log, punch or schedule screenshots, your offer letter or raise notice, and the prior two or three stubs. Digital timekeeping access can be switched off quickly, so capture it while you have it.
Then put it in writing to payroll or your manager: the exact pay period, the exact line item, the figure you expected, the figure you got, and the difference. Most shortfalls are honest mistakes and get corrected on the next check or with an off-cycle payment.
If it isn't fixed, the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division takes FLSA complaints, and your state labor agency handles state wage claims. Some state deadlines are as short as 180 days.
One reason to audit more than one stub: FLSA back-pay claims are assessed pay period by pay period, so a small error that repeats is a much bigger number than it looks. That's what the annual figure on this page shows, and running the same check across a few months of stubs turns a single suspicion into a pattern.
The best position to be in is having your own record before you need it. ClockWage44 logs each shift as you work it and runs an on-device paycheck engine over federal tax, state tax, FICA, overtime rules and deductions, so you already know what the check should say when it arrives.
This checker gives estimates only, based on the figures you enter, and it is not tax or legal advice. Federal constants are 2026 US rules; state and local taxes are not verified. Talk to your payroll department, your state labor agency, or an employment attorney about a specific situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about pay stub checker
How do I know if my paycheck is correct?
Check four things in order. Multiply your hours by your rate and compare the result to gross pay, which catches missing hours, a raise that was never applied, and overtime paid at straight time. Next, confirm that gross minus every deduction listed equals the net pay that hit your bank. If it doesn't, the stub is inconsistent on its own terms and payroll has something to explain. Third, Social Security and Medicare together should come to 7.65% of your FICA wages. Federal income tax is the one line you can't verify from the stub alone, because it depends on the W-4 you filed. This tool runs all four checks at once and tells you which line is off and by how much.
Why is my net pay lower than I calculated?
Almost always because deductions beyond federal tax and FICA are coming out: state and local income tax, health, dental and vision premiums, a 401(k) deferral, an HSA or FSA contribution, union dues, life insurance, parking, or a garnishment. Pre-tax benefits are the most common surprise, since they come out before you ever see the money. Enter each one in the deductions section above and the net reconciliation should close. If it still doesn't, the gap is real. To build a paycheck forward instead of auditing one, use the take-home pay calculator.
How much FICA should be withheld from my check?
7.65% of your FICA wages: 6.2% for Social Security plus 1.45% for Medicare. On $1,000 of gross that is $76.50. Two things change it. Once your wages for the year pass $184,500 in 2026, the 6.2% Social Security portion stops and only the 1.45% Medicare continues, so late-year checks for high earners show far less FICA. And once your wages pass $200,000 for the year, your employer adds a 0.9% Additional Medicare tax. Because the $184,500 Social Security cap is reached first, the 6.2% has already stopped by then, so wages above $200,000 have 2.35% withheld (1.45% Medicare plus the 0.9%), not 8.55%. The practical upshot for 2026: FICA on a single check should never come to more than 7.65% of your FICA wages, only less. Pre-tax health, dental, HSA and FSA deductions also reduce FICA wages below your gross, but a 401(k) deferral does not. The FICA tax calculator splits the two pieces apart.
What do I do if my paycheck is short hours?
Save the stub and gather your evidence first: your own hours record, punch or schedule screenshots, your offer letter or raise notice, and prior stubs. Digital timekeeping access can disappear, so screenshot it now. Rebuild the hours side from your punches with the timesheet calculator, then write down the exact pay period, the exact line item, what you expected and what you got, and take it to payroll or your manager in writing. Most shortfalls are genuine mistakes and get fixed on the next check or with an off-cycle correction. If your employer won't fix it, you can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, which enforces the FLSA, or with your state labor agency. Deadlines vary by state and some are as short as 180 days, so don't sit on it.
Why doesn't my federal tax withheld match this calculator?
Because this tool assumes a Form W-4 with Steps 2, 3 and 4 blank: one job, the standard deduction, no dependents claimed, no extra withholding. If any of those differ, the number moves for a legitimate reason. Extra withholding on Step 4(c) adds a flat amount every period. Step 3 dependent credits subtract $2,200 per qualifying child and $500 per other dependent for 2026 (IRS Form W-4, 2026 revision), spread across your paychecks. The Step 2 two-jobs checkbox increases withholding substantially. Pre-tax deductions you did not enter here lower your taxable wages. That's why the federal line comes back as a range and gets flagged as worth understanding rather than wrong. The W-4 withholding calculator is where you fix it.
My check included a bonus, so why are the numbers off?
Supplemental wages such as bonuses, commissions and severance are usually withheld at the IRS flat rate of 22% (37% on the portion above $1,000,000 for the year), not at your normal percentage-method rate. If a bonus sits inside this pay period, the expected federal withholding here will be too low and the expected gross will be short by the bonus amount, because a bonus is not hours times rate. Enter the bonus in the gross figure and treat the federal line as unverifiable for that period.
Why is my Social Security tax so low on my last few checks of the year?
You've most likely hit the wage base. Social Security tax only applies to the first $184,500 of wages in 2026. Once your year-to-date wages cross it, the 6.2% stops for the rest of the calendar year and your FICA line drops to just the 1.45% Medicare, so your take-home goes up. It resets on January 1. Enter your year-to-date gross in the optional field above and the tool applies the cap exactly instead of assuming a flat 7.65%.
Is a small difference on my pay stub an error?
Usually not. Payroll systems round each line to the cent independently, so a difference of one or two cents on gross or FICA is just arithmetic. This checker only flags gross when it is off by more than two cents, FICA when it is more than two cents outside the expected range, and net when it is off by more than a penny. Anything smaller is reported as rounding. What matters is a gap big enough to be real money: a missing half hour, an overtime line paid at the base rate, or a deduction you never authorized.